


Email Etiquette

by sixbeforelunch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 07:04:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5996125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixbeforelunch/pseuds/sixbeforelunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers reads his emails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Email Etiquette

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tielan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/gifts).



> This is my first ever attempt at writing Steve/Maria. I hope I did the pairing justice. Sorry it's not shippier. I tried my best, but the muse wasn't cooperating.

Steve Rogers reads his emails. In the beginning he reads all of them, even the obvious spam. As time goes by and he gets better at identifying the junk, he stops reading the many and varied offers of penile enhancements--though he continues reading the scams, and occasionally replying, stringing along a would-be con artist for a few days to waste their time and distract them from other, potentially more gullible, victims.

Maria doesn't know about the scammers, but she knows he reads his email. She knows because he is the only person in all of SHIELD who routinely follows the procedures and reminders that she emails out, and starts following them _as soon as the first email goes out_. He reads the attachments even. He completes his action items in a reasonable amount of time. She never has to follow up. She never has to hound him into returning his forms. 

The sixth time she sends an email and Steve is the first one to respond, action items complete, forms neatly filled out, and his reply making clear that he read the entire email, not just the parts in bold and underlined and italicized and highlighted in yellow for good measure, Maria has to say something.

_Thank you_ , she writes, _for actually reading my emails._

_Do other people not read them?_ he replies, almost immediately, meaning he is still on the base and probably bored. He's likely between meetings, she thinks.

_Not until I follow up five times and then follow them into the bathroom to threaten them_ , she writes, and then spends five minutes trying to decide if a winky face emoticon is appropriate. In the end she decides it is, because she has only had to threaten another SHIELD agent in a bathroom once, and it was not in fact about paperwork.

_Rude_ , Steve writes back. A few seconds later, another email appears. _I mean them, not you._

Maria smiles, absurdly pleased. It is rude. She doesn't write these emails for her health. She, at least, has it better than the poor Level One admins who have no hope of getting their emails read in a timely manner. Her name on an email makes people stop and glance at it, even if they don't attend to it right away. The admins sending out emails about remembering to tell someone when the low ink light on the printer is flashing have no hope at all.

_Welcome to the 21st century_ , Maria writes.

_People were plenty rude back in the 30s_ , Steve replies.

She doesn't reply to that, because there is a crisis a minute later, and for a few days she has a lot more to worry about than people who can't be bothered to read their emails. When she finally gets back to her desk, there is a stress ball in the shape of Iron Man's head sitting on her desk, along with a note in Steve's freakishly perfect Palmer-method handwriting.

"For when people don't respond to your emails," the note says.

Maris smiles. She has two stress balls on her desk already, but she tosses both of them in a drawer. She likes this one best.

**Author's Note:**

> I read your meta about Maria Hill and women's work, and for some reason it led me to the often unnoticed labor of sending emails that don't get read. I apologize again that I couldn't make this more overtly romantic. Imagine it as the first part of an epic romance. ;)


End file.
